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Mayday

Berlin was crazy today. Parties, mobile raves and techno music everywhere. Everyone drinking and dancing on the streets as the sun helped draw the crowds out for Labour Day. Food stalls and barbeques were set up, it seemed, spontaneously on Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky and mouth-watering smells wafting towards noses.All sorts of weird and wonderful people were there. Punks mingled with freaks, the freaks mingled with hippies, the hippies with onlookers and no one seemed in anyway bemused. The carnival atmosphere promised long hot summer days to come.

I wasn't entirely satisfied however. I was expecting riots. Riots dammit! Not one bottle thrown in anger at police did I see. Nor did I see any bottles being thrown in a good-natured manner. No bottles being thrown at all in fact, in any sort of manner.Streets were sealed off to traffic but from what I could see this was for the benefit of the on-street revellers. There were however, quite a few Polizei wagons just outside the party area, presumably ready to step in and round up any unrulies if things got out of hand.The Polizei themselves looked bored however. Their expectations, apparently, matched my own.